If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

If they want to keep their enhancements as a competitive advantage (as is often the case with proprietary software as that is the only point real of being proprietary) they won't. And seriously with the tools at our disposal today it's not particularly hard to keep a separate out-of-tree fork unless the original project goes out of it's way to deliberately make it hard. And again as soon as there is no requirement to push enhancements back and there is even the smallest hint at a competitive advantage to be had by keeping enhancements to themselves, companies are usually very keen on doing so as it's in their dna as competitive entities.

I think you'd have to do an awful lot of work to add the kinds of features and enhancements that offer a competitive advantage over the open source software itself. But then, they're really selling their hard work in the end ... I mean, who would buy software based on open source software that kinda does a little extra? No no ... it'd have to be a lot of non-trivial work to convince users to actually buy that. And to be honest, I'm OK with that from that perspective ...

Besides, do you have any examples? I'm not seeing this in practice. There are several examples of companies contributing source code back to permissive software projects and I can't think of any examples where permissive software was modified and leveraged with competitive features. And I think it's a lot harder to maintain out-of-tree forks of non-trivial open source software ... tools or not. Even something like the FreeBSD kernel is extremely volatile.

It's bad for developer who wants to develop proprietary code using GPL licenced code, it's a great licence for developers who want to benefit from any enhancements made to their code.

GPL is not for proprietary code as it exists entirely to keep the source code in all it's derivative forms open, as such it's an anti-thesis to proprietary code.

No you don't have to, you choose to. Just like the creator of that GPL licenced code chose to licence it as GPL, because he/she likely wanted any modifications made to the code made available to them.

... and all unrelated code having nothing to do with the GPL'd work on account of linking.

And it hurts open source software too.

And how you can complain about the existance of open source code available under a licence you don't prefer as tragic, while defending proprietary code (which isn't available as open source at all) just reeks of bullshit.

I'm sorry you feel that way. In my opinion, free open source software should not force its ideology on other works. This isn't kindergarten ... you don't have to share your modifications. Well, I choose those permissive terms anyway.

The discussion here is about the 'double morale' exposed in many BSD zealots who wants to frame proprietary as something good (keeping it closed is their right!!) while trying to frame GPL as something bad (as if it was somehow not a right to require derivates to remain open source!?!?).

But GPL does more than just keep derivatives open source. It extends its terms into even unrelated source simply through linking. As if using something so fundamental as SVD (GSL) or basic data structures (glib) really warrants re-licensing an entire project as GPL on account of linking. This is likely worse than most proprietary licenses. For example, if I link with MS SDK, there are no such ludicrous terms. That's preposterous.

Nobody is complaining about LGPL (well I'm not), for example, because it doesn't have such heavy-handed terms.

Of course, I can think of situations where I might use GPL. Let's say I wanted to sell some software. I could make a GPL version so that it gains widespread use and exposure in the community and then sell a proprietary-licensed version of it to interested companies that want accountability and support.

Comment

Really? Of the top of my head I can think of Juniper's proprietary JunOS based upon FreeBSD but obviously in most cases we don't even know as they are after all 'proprietary', but we can look at Linux forks like that in Android (which now makes it fully back into mainline, something it hardly would had it not been for being licenced as GPL), it's not something particularly difficult for companies to do.

Of course it would be better if they didn't feel there was any need, but companies seldom want to give away an advantage to a competitor when nothing compels that competitor to do the same in return, however with GPL there is a legal basis for a share alike cooperation between companies.

The massive corporate supported development Linux enjoys is a testament to this being effective.

... and all unrelated code having nothing to do with the GPL'd work on account of linking.

It's not unrelated if it links to it, beyond that GPL is seldom used for library/component code which is typically the type of code you would 'link' to, this is where LGPL or permissive licenses are primarily chosen. Standard GPL is most often used for complete solutions like full applications or other wholly self-sustained components.

This is likely worse than most proprietary licenses. For example, if I link with MS SDK, there are no such ludicrous terms. That's preposterous.

You get to link against MS SDK for free because Windows is not for free and the resulting binary will only run on Windows, typically you even have to splash out for Visual Studio to effectively use said SDK's. Again, with GPL the 'price' is that you keep your code open, how can you say that is 'preposterous' while at the same time saying that charging money for code is not? The answer is that neither are preposterous.

Of course, I can think of situations where I might use GPL. Let's say I wanted to sell some software. I could make a GPL version so that it gains widespread use and exposure in the community and then sell a proprietary-licensed version of it to interested companies that want accountability and support.

This is certainly an option, the x264 project does exactly that, a GPL licenced open source version for use with open source, a licence for proprietary use which you can buy. As the creator/owner of a piece of code you are free to licence it under any licence(s) or other conditions you please.

Comment

Really? Of the top of my head I can think of Juniper's proprietary JunOS based upon FreeBSD but obviously in most cases we don't even know as they are after all 'proprietary', but we can look at Linux forks like that in Android (which now makes it fully back into mainline, something it hardly would had it not been for being licenced as GPL), it's not something particularly difficult for companies to do.

Of course, claiming that Android forks wouldn't make it back in the mainline had it not been GPL is complete speculation, especially with Google's track record in open source. We have projects like LLVM, FreeBSD, LAPACK to name a few which do not have a GPL license have also enjoyed contributions from corporations (only no one forces them to do this).

It's not unrelated if it links to it, beyond that GPL is seldom used for library/component code which is typically the type of code you would 'link' to, this is where LGPL or permissive licenses are primarily chosen. Standard GPL is most often used for complete solutions like full applications or other wholly self-sustained components.

If I write some computer vision software, for example, then I might use SVD and basic data structures. But these have little to do with my specific application. They are general purpose tools, not tools specific to computer vision. Linking with libraries like GSL, which provide very basic numerical routines, then imposes the entirety of GPL on me. That is crazy and this is what permissive license advocates are really complaining about. Not this other talking point of modifying complete solutions.

Because you say so?

No. Because of license incompatibilities. C'mon man, go look in the Phoronix archive. There was even one recently about some unusable CAD software.

You get to link against MS SDK for free because Windows is not for free and the resulting binary will only run on Windows, typically you even have to splash out for Visual Studio to effectively use said SDK's. Again, with GPL the 'price' is that you keep your code open, how can you say that is 'preposterous' while at the same time saying that charging money for code is not? The answer is that neither are preposterous.

It's preposterous because you'll not find many proprietary licenses with such heavy-handed terms. And yet, something as open as GPL has such terms and quite needlessly ... so much so the LGPL was created (again, we're talking about the complaints of permissive license advocates).

Comment

We have projects like LLVM, FreeBSD, LAPACK to name a few which do not have a GPL license have also enjoyed contributions from corporations (only no one forces them to do this).

Of course there are companies contributing back code even if they don't have to, particularly in areas where there is little reason to compete or with select contributions which offer no competitive value (Google would be the exception here, they readily open source code which by all accounts could be considered competitive advantages if kept to themselves, but they are hardly the norm (unfortunately) ).

Linking with libraries like GSL, which provide very basic numerical routines, then imposes the entirety of GPL on me. That is crazy and this is what permissive license advocates are really complaining about.

You choose to use this library, it's not imposed upon you. You may argue that the author of library X could have chosen a better licence for his/her work as it is of a component type, but that is not a problem of the licence itself, the author chose this licence.

GPL makes perfect sense in a ton of settings, even by your own admission. So obviously it's not the licence that is any problem, it's that it has been used for a particular type of code which in your opinion should not have been licenced as GPL, but rather LGPL or something more permissive.

Now why your preference should hold sway over this authors licence choice and allow you to call his/her choice crazy, that is another discussion I'm sure, and one where I don't agree with you.

But obviously there's nothing wrong with the GPL licence, as you have no problem with it being used under certain circumstances which are according to your preferences.

The GPL licence is just that, a licence, someone actively chooses it for his/her code. If that code is such that it will only be used as a small component then you may argue that the author who chose that licence for their code made a poor choice (much better than calling them crazy), but the GPL licence has no control over which type of code someone applies it upon.

Easily solved then, let's all use GPL, no more incompabilities for open source. Oh, that's not your preference? Well there you have it, different people have different licence preferences, I guess that means that, oh, shocker, we will have licence incompabilities!!! Yes, it would be easier if there was only one party to vote on come election, except maybe it's not such a good idea after all.

C'mon man, go look in the Phoronix archive. There was even one recently about some unusable CAD software.

I know, I was in that discussion. The reason there was an incompability is that the company in question which released the library did so under GPLv2 ONLY which prevented it to be used together with a GPLv3 licenced code project. I would have preferred that this company had released the code as LGPL or one of the permissive licences, as it was a library and in my preference libraries are a poor fit for GPL. At the very least I would have preferred that they chose to include the more or less standard 'or later' clause which would atleast have prevented this particular problem.

However this brings us back to the discussion above, it's nothing wrong with GPLvX, however we may find another licence type more preferential in regards to certain types of code. However this is at the end of the day a choice made by the code author/owner, and as we can see from the licence landscape most developers use GPL for 'full application'-style code and LGPL/permissive licencing for library/component code. So clearly their is an overall concensus in regards to where these licences best apply.

Which is again why attacking GPL makes no sense, it's a licence, one which even you as a permissive licence advocate admits has benefits. If people choose to use this for their code in situations where you or I may find it inappropriate is not a problem with the licence itself, and at the end of the day it's really not worth much of a discussion at all as it's someone else's code and they have every right to licence it as they please without having their choices described as crazy.

It's preposterous because you'll not find many proprietary licenses with such heavy-handed terms.

Oh please, have you read a proprietary software EULA? And how could you call this a preposterous demand? It's no more preposterous than saying you can have a binary under these EULA conditions if you pay me money.